Mobile devices, such as cellular telephones, personal data assistants (PDAs), media players etc., continue to increase in popularity. To maintain this trend, manufacturers continue to explore ways to make mobile devices appeal to a larger part of the population. One object of the invention is to address a need for improvements in the ease of use of such devices, by automating aspects of their operation to make performing different functions with the device simpler or more intuitive.
Headsets are used with many mobile devices to free-up a user's hands leaving them free to perform other tasks, such as driving, etc and are also advantageous in noisy environments. As a result, headsets increase the convenience of using a mobile device. With many mobile devices, the audio signal is outputted through a headset having one or more earpieces connected by an electrical cord to an output jack on the device. An improvement to this is to have a cord retractor in the device, as this provides many advantages. It allows for convenient storage of the cord, it allows a variable length of cord to be deployed as required to avoid snagging, tangling, or like problems and it also prevents headsets from being misplaced when not utilized or when not plugged into the mobile device. Another area of focus with mobile devices is hands-free wireless communications where headsets communicate with a local mobile device via a local wireless network. Such headsets have elements in common with other mobile audio devices, but a particular application is telephone communications. A further object of the invention is to address a need for improvements in the ease of use of audio devices of this type.